After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.
A flying demon feeding on human energies.
A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down.
And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw.
The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates.
She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight. 

Legendborn is 100% the reason why I choose to never DNF a book. I’m not going to lie, this was so hard to get into, I found the opening chapters trite and full of high school/College cliche’s, honestly I struggled to bring myself to pick it back up. However the payoff for pushing through this opening section was nothing short of huge and I’m glad I carried on. The world building does start off a little clumsy, there is just so much information to absorb with regard to magic, the concept of legendborn and onceborn, and then every branch and facet of the Order, vassells, pages, scions…. you get the picture. However, it does click into place and I became utterly swept up in it all. The mythology is very well thought out and researched, I adored the addition of the Welsh, leading back to the original land of King Arthur. So often the other members of the round table get forgotten in retellings, but each line is considered and every Page must chose a path, I found this to be a really refreshing and compelling take on the myth. I loved the Buffy vibe with many of the creatures and the way they are fought too. Once past the opening, the school setting pretty much falls away and we are in a wonderful world of old magic, imposing buildings and impressive grounds, much of the action takes place at night, adding to the atmospheric feel.

Bree is such an amazingly complex character, whilst she could easily have been whiny and full of self pity, her ability to recognise the changes in herself from before and after her devastating loss is astute, she rarely holds back when it comes to challenging the bigoted colonial and very white Legendborn Order, yet in a parallel to what we see in the real world, she finds herself often coming to the attention of the police and faculty heads, when her white counterparts get to walk away.  Her time with Patricia is some of the most compelling of the book, especially with her help in identifying and summarising the two magic systems in play. The way the second is discovered is pretty heartbreaking but it fits in significantly with the way that race is put forward. As Bree finds herself able to discover more about her own history and magic, the history of a school and secret society built on slavery is well woven into the pages and mirrors both the magics and the way they are formed and wielded. Selwyn sadly is a walking YA cliche, however his character as a Merlin is brilliantly brought into the 21st century. Nick as a love interest really fell flat.  William is really the only other character with depth and I think that is because he was written with great humour and I wish that Alice had more time to shine as her banter with Bree was brilliant.

I did struggle with the short time period in which everything occurs, whilst the writing reflects a feeling of a large passing of time, there are occasions when I was reminded that only a night or a few days had passed, which pulled me away from the story a bit and pulled the believability of some relationships to the limit. But ultimately this is a great story that really pulled me in with its creativity and amazing protagonist, the final battle is brilliantly written and left me with my heart pounding and just in awe at how the pieces slotted together. Now that the groundwork has been laid, I just know that the next in the series will hit the ground running and I am totally here for it!

4.5*

Duty. Desire. Destiny.
How far would you go to be safe… to be free…to be loved?
Iskra doesn’t question the rules. The rules are there to keep her safe from those who are deemed unsafe or unfair. Anyone who breaks the rules is taken, never to be heard from again. But that’s the price everyone gladly pays for peace and safety. And no one wants to live like the Riskers–barbarians who reject order and justice, and could kill or be killed at any moment.
When a friend is taken because of Iskra, the guilt forces her to do the unthinkable: seek out the Riskers. Iskra’s quest to save her friend quickly entangles her fate with a cryptic prophecy and a young Risker named Xico, who ensnares her heart and is willing to put it all on the line to win her.
With every risk Iskra takes, the closer she gets to true freedom. But every choice carries a consequence. The choices she makes set events she never imagined into motion, and the price of her freedom could very well be her life and the life of the man she loves.

Flight of the Spark ended up being a very unexpected book for me, from the cover I thought I was in for a magic heavy, high fantasy, however, it was very much a dystopian world albeit in a medieval setting. It was an easy world to get into with great descriptive world building that painted a vivid picture of the area. I loved the opening stages, Iskra is wonderfully naive and but also horribly controlled by fear. Her inquisitive nature, however, leads to the perfect story arc for her. As I discovered more about the village and those that are tasked with keeping its inhabitants safe, the more it made sense that she was so easily pulled further and further into the arms of the Risker’s. The two area’s could not be more different and made for a nice juxtapose, between the bleak village and the hard but colourful Risker life, it gave great light and dark to the story. The school elements really allowed for the backstory to be creatively woven in across several lessons, which meant the the author cleverly avoided an infodump. I think I would have liked to have understood sooner though why the villagers and the Riskers were not allowed to mix, because I was always questioning why Iskra felt she had to always return to the village up until that point.

The magic system was simple and understated in this opening book, more of an ideology, those who are able to wield do so sparingly and with subtlety. I hope that it gets the chance to shine later in the series as I liked the way the foundation was laid for it.. The relationship for the most part is very sweet but does have a Romeo and Juliet undertone, I liked how the romance was able to develop slowly and didn’t dominate the story, which was complex at times and also pretty dark in places. There’s a side story that I would have loved to have explored further with regard to the Taken, but events overtook that section quickly and it probably would have pulled too far away from the fast pace of Iskra’s arc to return to it. There are many fast paced and a few slightly chilling moments woven through which really had me turning the pages! As a stylistic point, I liked how the inner monologue was denoted by italics so I always knew where I was with the narrative.

The book for the most part read like a teen novel for me but there is a lot of violence and whilst the intimate moments are fade to black, the underage aspect didn’t sit well with me. The point that Iskra was just 15 was drilled so heavily home to drive certain aspects of the story forward that the author was left with no choice in order to get the rest of the story where it needed to go. I also felt that the earlier part of the story was bogged down a little with a huge cast of side characters who didn’t really add anything to the story. I was also often left struggling to keep track of every new name and area, this was also compounded by the fact that days of the week, seasons, even the moon all had their own new identity too and it felt name overloaded at times.

However, it remained a captivating read throughout and one that I found myself eager to pick back up, I’m intrigued as to where the story will head next, given the devastating cliffhanger and revelation! My thanks to the Author for providing a finished copy for review.

4*